Bezos-backed Prometheus raises $12B at $41B valuation for physical AI engineering; 7-month-old startup aims for "artificial general engineer"

Prometheus, the physical AI startup co-founded by Jeff Bezos and Vik Bajaj (former co-founder of Alphabet's Verily), announced a $12 billion Series B round on June 11 at a $41 billion valuation. Investors include JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, DST Global, and Arch Venture Partners, alongside Bezos himself as the largest individual backer. Combined with a $6.2 billion Series A, the company has raised $18.2 billion in just seven months since launching in November 2025.

The company is building what it terms an 'artificial general engineer' — AI software designed to compress the invention-to-manufacturing cycle for complex physical systems such as jet engines, semiconductor chips, medical devices, and pharmaceutical compounds. Bezos frames the vision as automating the "dream-to-manufacturing-at-rate" loop that currently spans decades for aerospace and automotive products. The $12B round is heavily weighted toward compute acquisition, as training physical AI models on real-world engineering data is capital-intensive. The company has ~150 employees across San Francisco, London, and Zurich.

For architects and infrastructure teams, Prometheus signals a structural shift in where venture capital sees the next AI value: not in next-token prediction but in atoms—the design, simulation, and manufacturing of physical products. This bets against the prevailing language-model-centric view that dominated 2024-2025. Bezos's operational commitment (returning to CEO for the first time since leaving Amazon) underscores the gravity of the bet. The funding will likely attract competing startups and partnerships with aerospace, automotive, and semiconductor manufacturers seeking AI-assisted design acceleration.